Scott Waugh

The moving vehicles in Runner (2026) have a force its fights cannot match. Scott Waugh seems most certain of what he is doing when a car stunt can hold our attention without an accompanying joke or plea for sympathy. We enjoyed these passages because the movement itself supplied excitement that the changes of mood elsewhere kept interrupting. Cinematographer Lorenzo Senatore shares the credit for the car action, though it is not enough to make the film a recommendation.

Waugh came to directing from stunt work, and his preference for practical action on location helps explain that confidence. After documentaries and commercials, he co-directed Act of Valor (2012) with Mike McCoy, using active-duty Navy SEALs in his first narrative feature. Need for Speed (2014), adapted from the video game, made extensive use of practical car stunts. He puts cameras inside vehicles and among performers, keeping us close to the people doing the dangerous work. By Expend4bles (2023), he was directing an established franchise ensemble, including Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham.

Runner gives that approach a harder test by asking the action to sit alongside buddy comedy and sentiment. Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson are agreeable company, and their bickering gives Waugh something to work with between stunts. But the film’s severe violence makes the quick returns to comedy feel careless. When it then asks for sympathy, the characters have not been developed enough to earn it. His practice of planning set pieces around locations and characters’ emotions does not solve the problem here; the people need more substance before their danger can matter.

We would approach Waugh for the stunt work and keep expectations of the drama modest. The confidence of those driving sequences gives us a reason to look again, but not to excuse the stretches where a film cannot decide how it wants us to react. If he returns to this sort of action comedy, a little more time spent on the people between collisions would help.